The Chairman reminded members that the
committee had previously decided that it wanted to give
consideration to undertaking some form of scrutiny of the indices
of deprivation. The Lead Members had
decided that before making a decision on if and how to scrutinise
this issue, the committee should first hear from CBH with regard to
the ‘Masterplan’ that they were currently developing ,
and what it could do to address some of the issues. He noted that the committee would also hear from
the Communities Partnership at a future meeting, to hear about the
work they were doing to address issues relating to the indices of
deprivation.

Paul Stephenson, Chief Executive and Peter
Hatch, Executive Director - Properties and Communities, of
Cheltenham Borough Homes (CBH) introduced themselves to the
committee. Paul Stephenson thanked the
committee for providing the opportunity to present details of the
project, which commenced in September 2017 and would culminate in a
completed masterplan by July 2018, and which represented a
significant piece of work for CBH.

Nash Partnerships, independent consultants
specialising in community engagement in planning and regeneration
and the architects responsible for the St. Pauls regeneration
scheme, were appointed to undertake the consultation. The feedback from this consultation, along with
the comprehensive financial analysis for each of the 14 sites,
could result in 4 to 5 options which supported the project outcomes
(as detailed in the pictorial which had been circulated with the
agenda) and whilst housing was a large part of this, the
socio-economic benefits were a key element. This project required a collaborative approach and
with this in mind, a Programme Board had been established with Tim
Atkins, Managing Director of Place and Economic Development at CBC,
having been appointed as Chairman.
Because this project was not simply about housing, Nash
Partnerships were undertaking a lot of work on other areas
including health and employment and there was a wide range of
partnership involvement. Improving the
indices of deprivation was the integral benefit of the project,
which would need to improve in order to demonstrate success, but
these were long-term proposals which would take some years to
deliver. It was suggested that
quarterly updates would be made available to members and there was
a request that CBH be given the opportunity to make a more detailed
presentation to members in the Autumn.

The following responses were given to member
questions:

·
As yet there had been no further detail regarding eligibility in
relation to the proposed increase to the borrowing cap of local
authorities to allow for increased development of new
housing. The expectation was that this
would be included in the impending green paper on social housing,
which was expected to be published in Spring 2018. However,
given the property prices and the cost of land in Cheltenham it was
assumed likely that CBC would indeed be eligible. CBH had attended a meeting with Homes England at
which it had made clear its interest to explore the viability and
CBH were maintaining ... view
the full minutes text for item 6.

Richard Gibson, the Strategy and Engagement
Manager introduced the update as circulated with the agenda and the
draft Place Strategy which was starting to take shape. With
the final draft scheduled to go to Council at the end of March, it
was considered timely to seek the views of the committee, on the
changes that had been made since the committee last looked at it in
January. Efforts had been made to simplify the framework and
condense the vision, to which three ambitions had been aligned
(Cheltenham is the most digitally enabled town, Cheltenham
champions physical and mental wellbeing and Cheltenham has an
international reputation for culture, heritage and sport). He
noted that the four values had been retained, which he and other
officers had felt was important and the document was deliberately
short, with an open and accessible style, in order that it would
not be seen as a weighty policy document.

The following responses were given to member
questions:

The reference to
‘mental wellbeing’ had been used in its broader
definition rather than simply relating to clinical mental
health. The recent study in Frome was given as an example of
where connecting people and reducing social isolation, amongst
other things, had helped to improve people’s mental
wellbeing.

The Place Strategy
was a partnership document rather than a CBC document and the
ambition around an international reputation for culture, heritage
and wellbeing was important to all partners. Cheltenham
certainly had an international reputation for horse racing but this
needed to be translated into other areas and the Tour of Britain
represented an attempt to do this. There was something around
capturing and harnessing the energy and possibilities, rather than
this being something for the council to deliver
directly.

Education was
captured in one of the nine aspirations and there was agreement
across partners that Cheltenham had a state and private education
offer to be proud of. But there was admittedly a skills gap
and more needed to be done to address this at the same time that
work was ongoing to co-ordinate this to respond to the expected
growth in terms of cyber/digital skills.

Whilst recognising
that economic growth was hugely important in order to allow culture
and communities to grow and prosper, there was a need for this
document to be balanced and to progress all three ambitions
together. The Corporate Strategy would contain specifics
about what this council would be doing to support these ambitions
and this might be the place to highlight particular
priorities.

Although some might
feel that certain aspects of Cheltenham (for example the
‘supply of business space’) were being undersold in
this document, there was a need for honesty in terms of areas where
there was the desire or need to invest. It was acknowledged that the University were
critical to enabling the success of some aspects of this strategy
and members could be assured that links had been
established.

Mark Sheldon, the Director of Resources and
Corporate Projects and Richard Gibson, the Strategy and Engagement
Manager introduced the discussion paper as circulated with the
agenda. Members were reminded that in December 2017, Council
had agreed a £2.5 million scheme to revitalise Leisure-at
Cheltenham, as well as a revised approach to the project management
of the scheme, with the council contracting Alliance Leisure
Services (ALS) to deliver the project on their behalf.
Paragraph 2.4 of the paper outlined the advantages of this approach
and paragraph 3-3.11 detailed the governance arrangements that had
been put in place. It was highlighted that,
in recognition that this represented a significant project for
CBC which was not without some risks; a client-side Project Manager
had been appointed. The Director of Resources and Corporate
Projects explained that a lot of work had been done upfront in
terms of cost development, which had resulted in a fixed price
being agreed, though there was various contingency budgets to
address any unforeseen issues.
Highlight reports would be considered by the Senior Leadership Team
as well as the Joint Commissioning Group (JCG) and the JCG had also
asked for regular reports on any variances.

The following responses were given to
members:

The council had
entered into a fixed-price contract with ALS, who in turn had
contracted with Savernake Property Consultants (SPC) to co-ordinate
project on behalf of ALS. The council had spent a significant
amount of time with ALS to fully understand what cost-certainty
actually meant but given the set of risks that accompanied the
Council report, it was considered prudent to appoint a client-side
Project Manager. The £30k was a provisional sum, to
allow the Project Manager, Jane Stovell, to dedicate 1 day a week
to co-ordinate and maintain an overview of the project.

The build programme
was relatively short, at 20 weeks and the suggestion was that the
Audit Committee might want to undertake a review of the approach
once works had been completed.

A contingency of c.5%
had been set aside which included £35k having been retained
for any cost over-runs with the piling work. Work would be
completed and signed off before any payments were made and
ultimately Savernake were contracted to ALS, not the council,
should there be a problem.

There were no escrow
arrangements and the justification for this decision would be
emailed to members for information.

The Project
Initiation Document (PID) had been drafted at the outset but needed
to be revisited to reflect the client-side arrangements and once
this was completed, a copy would be circulated to members by
email.

The Chairman thanked both the Director of
Resources and Corporate Projects and the Strategy and Engagement
Manager for their attendance and looked forward to receiving emails
regarding the justification for deciding having any escrow
arrangements and a copy of the finalised PID.

Martin Chandler, the Development Manager
introduced the officer response which had been circulated with the
agenda. He reminded members that the Cheltenham Flood and
Drainage Panel had given a presentation to the committee in
November 2017 and in response to this, the committee had posed
three questions to officers: could comprehensive training be
arranged for officers and members of the Planning Committee on
flooding and drainage issues; could officers outline the
Council’s responsibilities in terms of planning, and; could
officers explain if and how the panel could be given the same
status as the Civic Society and Architects’ Panel. The
paper set out, in detail, the Council’s responsibilities, as
well as the responsibilities of the Lead Local Flood Authority
which was GCC. In response to the question of giving the
panel the same status as the Civic Society or Architects’
Panel, he urged caution in the first instance, given that these
bodies had been recognised in the Constitution given their ability
to provide design advice in the absence of a statutory
consultee. His suggestion was that the panel engage with the
GCC as the LLFA to improve lines of communication. In terms
of the officer and Planning Committee member training, he was able
to confirm that the date had been set for 6pm on the 9
April.

Councillor Baker, as the member who had made
the original request for a presentation from the panel thanked the
Development Manage for what he considered to be a very
comprehensive report. However, he maintained the view that
the panel should be given the same status as the Civic Society, and
noted that as a member of Planning Committee, he could think of two
recent instances where their input would have been
helpful.

The Chairman thanked the Development Manager
for having produced such a detailed response and whilst he welcomed
news that a training date had been scheduled, he did feel that it
may be necessary to repeat it after the elections, should new
members be appointed to the Planning Committee. He also
requested that the Development Manager make the necessary
arrangements for the panels initial
meeting with the LLFA.

The Chairman introduced Gareth
Edmundson, Managing Director of Ubico
and Wayne Lewis of the Joint Waste Partnership (JWT) and explained
that Councillor Coleman, Cabinet Member for Clean and Green
Environment and Tim Atkins, Managing Director of Place and Economic
Development were on hand to answer any questions.

Wayne Lewis provided a brief
overview of initial waste and recycling performance following the
launch of the new service in October 2017, which saw the
introduction of new vehicles, new collection rounds and a wider
range of recyclable materials. He felt that at this early
stage it was difficult to form a judgement as to whether it had
been successful or not and that this had been further complicated
by the two instances of adverse weather. However, compared
with the previous service, recycling had increased and was likely
to exceed the modelled 2%, but this was not to say that there had
not been some service issues. Crews had struggled to complete
some rounds and this was due to the volume of recycling being
presented and inconsistent sorting of materials by some residents,
which resulted in rounds taking longer than they should. Some
temporary additional resource had helped to resolve the issues and
work was now ongoing to understand how to address this going
forward.

Gareth Edmundson introduced a
PowerPoint presentation (Appendix 1) which he hoped would explain
some of the issues. He stressed that failure to complete was
not the same as a missed collection as a result of crew error and
explained that these failures to complete were a consequence of the
volume of recycling being presented at kerbside and inconsistent
sorting of materials. Having gone out on a shift himself,
he’d seen first-hand that whilst entire row of houses could
have sorted their recycling very well, the next row of houses may
not have separated it at all and explained it could take almost
double the time to complete a collection when the materials were
unsorted. This was relevant because crews had a finite time
in order to complete rounds and Ubico
had no choice but to recall crews back to Swindon Road by 5pm so as
not to break regulations and risk being reported to the Traffic
Commissioner and or health and safety regulations relating to
working in the dark. This meant that some rounds had to be
rolled forward to the next collection day and there would have bene
some residents who would have had repeat instances of collections
on different days to those which had been communicated to
them. Narrow access streets is an historical issue and whilst
advice was sought from existing users of Romaquips and Ubico
operatives and drivers, to inform procurement, there was a balance
that needed to be achieved between having vehicles that enabled
service to all roads and buying the minimum number required to
provide the flexibility and capacity required. To address the
issue of non-completion of rounds, two additional vehicles have
been added and have specific rounds and data was being
...
view the full minutes text for item 10.

An update on the recent Police
and Crime Panel meeting had been circulated with the agenda and the
update on the recent meeting of the Gloucestershire Economic Growth
Committee (Appendix 2) had been circulated to members, by email, in
advance of the meeting. As neither
author was present, members were asked to contact them directly
with any comments or questions.

An update from the Cabinet on key issues for
Cabinet Members which may be of interest to Overview and Scrutiny
and may inform the O&S work plan

Minutes:

The Leader referred members to the briefing
which had been circulated with the agenda. In it he had posed two questions to the committee;
did O&S want further input into the Arle Nursery Strategic Review before the report was
taken to Cabinet, and; did O&S have any views on the issue of
scrutiny of Publica.

The committee were happy for the Arle Nursery Strategic review to be scheduled on
the agenda for the next O&S meeting (23 April).

Given that there would be an annual
stakeholders’ meeting, the suggestion from the committee was
that the Leader, as the shareholder representative, should
communicate to all members, any upcoming decisions, giving said
members the opportunity to raise any questions in advance.

In response to a member question, the Leader
confirmed that the council had an enhanced Severe Weather Emergency
Protocol (SWEP), with provision after one night of the temperature
dropping below zero, where others required three consecutive
nights. The charity P3 would
proactively identify rough sleepers across the county to ensure
that they had a warm bed for the night.

The scrutiny plan had been circulated with the
agenda. In response to matters raised
during the meeting or by members, the Democracy Officer confirmed
that:

·
The Arle Nursery Strategic Review would
be scheduled for the 23 April meeting but officers would need to
confirm that this fit with the current project
timetable.

·As stated at the last meeting, a
response to the Select Committee report on scrutiny was being
tabled with the Corporate Governance Group and Lead Members for
scrutiny would then give consideration to if and how a review
should be undertaken, but this would be after the upcoming
elections so as to get fresh perspective from new members.

·
An update on the issues at the crematorium would be scheduled for
the next meeting (23 April).

·
The reason a briefing note had been produced on the sound system,
rather than a discussion paper, was because the tenders had not yet
been evaluated. The Democracy Officer
would raise the issue of member involvement in this process (beyond
that of the working group which had been established) and agree an
acceptable approach with the lead members for scrutiny.

A
member felt that briefing note on the sound system seemed to
suggested that the council had already
decided to take the cheapest, most basic option and he questioned
the logic behind this decision. He felt
that it was worth spending more if this could result in the need
for less, resources in support of the democratic
process. Another member disagreed and
felt that the council should not be spending money on a new sound
system in a building which it intended to vacate in 6
years.

14.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 - EXEMPT INFORMATION

The
committee is recommended to approve the following
resolution:-

“That in accordance with Section 100A(4) Local Government Act 1972 the public be
excluded from the meeting for the remaining agenda items as it is
likely that, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted
or the nature of the proceedings, if members of the public are
present there will be disclosed to them exempt information as
defined in paragraph 3, Part (1) Schedule (12A) Local Government
Act 1972, namely:

Paragraph 3; Information relating to the financial
or business affairs of any particular

person(including the authority holding that
information)

Minutes:

Upon a vote it was
unanimously

RESOLVED
thatin accordance with
Section 100A(4) Local Government Act
1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the remaining
agenda items as it is likely that, in view of the nature of the
business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, if
members of the public are present there will be disclosed to them
exempt information as defined in paragraph 3, Part (1) Schedule
(12A) Local Government Act 1972, namely:

Paragraph 3; Information relating to the financial
or business affairs of any particular person (including the
authority holding that information)